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The
February 2, 2011
Portland Observer B lack H isto ry M o n th
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Mark Twain Would be Pleased
Exposing a gap between
rhetoric and reality
by
L ee A. D aniels
Mark Twain would be pleased,
wouldn’t he?
The heated reaction to the publishing
of a new edition of The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn with the word “nigger”
changed to “slave” continues unabated
in the mainstream media and the blogosphere.
One thing it proves is, on the one hand, the power of
Twain’s imagination and fictive skill and, on the other,
his grasp of reality.
He knew that the issue of race was the sharpest point
of the enormous question of what it means to be an
American (with the question of white Americans’ atti
tudes toward Indians - “injuns” - close behind) - and
what kind of nation America is.
So it was in the late nineteenth century, when white
Northerners betrayed the promise of Reconstruction
and gave white Southerners dominion over black South
erners as “compensation” for the defeat of the Confed
eracy.
So it remains today.
Why else would the decision to remove the word
“nigger” from just one of the scores of the available
editions of Huckleberry Finn cause, as Twain might
say, bring such a ruckus?
Not only has the controversy provoked the
usual puffed-chest, and wrong-headed, cries of
censorship, but it has also produced thought-
provoking commentary about child-rearing prac
tices , about the com petence of elem entary and
secondary school teachers and the narrowness of
high school curricula, and about pedagogical prac
tices in general.
It has done so precisely because the word “nigger”
remains one of the most contested words in the Ameri
can lexicon.
This is part of the point author Lorrie Moore makes
when she writes that “No novel with the word ‘ kike’ or
bitch' spelled out 20() times could or should be sepa
rated - fbr purposes of irony or pedagogy - from the
attitudes that produced those words. It's also impossible
that such a novel would be taught in a high school
classroom. And if it were taught, student alienation
might very well contribute to another breed of achieve
ment gap.”
Both Joel Dreyfuss, editor of TheRoot.com and
Moore, indirectly and directly, respectively, argue
persuasively that Huckleberry Finn is too complex to
be taught in high school. T hat’s a discussion worth
having. Indeed, one can say it’s part of the continuing
value of tw ain’s Huckleberry Finn: The teaching of it
remains so problematic for the larger society pre
cisely because it’s easy and voluminous use of
“nigger” represents the attitudes and practices of the
whitg American majority of that era.
In doing so, Twain exposes the chasm between the
rhetoric of the American Ideal and the appalling reality of
America as it was. And, although many do not want to
hear it, his story continues to ask a powerful question:
How wide is the gap between the rhetoric and the reality
today?
Lee A. Daniels is Director o f Communications fo r the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and
Editor-in-Chief o f TheDefendersOnline.
Meet the New Media Monopoly
NBC-Comcast
merger falls short
on public good
by
D ave S aldana
For more than a century,
American law has recognized
the destructive power of cor
porate monopolies.
When one company controls
an entire resource, means of production
or delivery system for products, it gets an
unfair advantage over competitors. It can
overcharge them out of existence or drive
them into bankruptcy.
Since Teddy Roosevelt's presidency,
our government has tried to ensure that
monopolistic business practices don't
destroy fair pricing and consumer choice.
Then how can it justify the merger of
Comcast and NBC Universal, which the
Federal Communications Commission
approved on Jan. 18?
The FCC is supposed to reject any
media merger that doesn’t advance the
public interest. But Comcast’s takeover
JJartlanb ©baerner
of NBC will give one mega-corporation
control of too much of what we watch
and how we watch it.
The deal creates not just a new media
behemoth with the ability to throttle
competition and stifle innovation,
but a completely new model for
media organizations and how they
operate. Where Comcast and NBC
go today, AT&T, Verizon, Disney,
Time Warner, and Viacom are soon
to follow. The era of the mega
mega-merger is upon us.
Comcast is already the country’s larg
est cable and home broadband provider.
The new Comcast will own production,
content, and distribution for local televi
sion stations, national networks broad
casting in English and Spanish, and nu
merous cable channels and movie studios.
One company will soon account for 20
percent of all network and cable TV view
ing hours. That should worry you.
Why? Because when one company,
motivated solely by profit, can choose
what news to cover and how to cover it,
you may not be getting the full story.
When it can exclude competing ideas or
Established 1970
perspectives, whether for political or eco
nomic reasons, you may be denied a full
hearing on the issues. And that’s bad for
democracy.
Want to see what this looks like in
action? Search MSNBC's website for its
coverage of the controversy surrounding
the merger. If you look very closely, you
might find a short blurb from Fort Wayne,
Ind. that mentions consumer concerns in
passing. NBC Nightly News reported the
deal, but anchor Brian Williams failed to
mention the intense opposition to the
merger or the serious concerns about it.
If a media company can keep opposing
views off your TV and computer screens,
you’ll never know any different.
Comcast has a history of using its
control over cable and the Internet to
bottleneck information and cripple com
petitors. The company has already been
caught blocking the legal file sharing of
such things as barbershop quartet music
and the King James Bible. More recently,
it’s been accused of deliberately congest
ing its broadband network to slow down
content delivery and of raising fees for
such competitors as Netflix who deliver
online video to their customers.
Now, with a slew of popular NBC
programs in its hands and the accompa
nying leverage, what’s to stop Comcast
from doing even worse?
The FCC and the Justice Department
imposed temporary conditions to make
the merger more palatable, but there’s not
enough sugar to sweeten this rotten deal.
And the conditions, inadequate to begin
with, are’ only as strong as the FCC’s
willingness to enforce them.
The agency's hands-off approach to
the biggest media merger in recent memory
isn't a good sign. There are plenty of laws
against one thing or another, but without
a cop on the beat, what good are they?
Monopolies are dangerous. We can
expect corporations to be concerned only
with padding their bottom line, regardless
of the public good. But when regulators
like the FCC become more concerned
with pleasing corporations than protect
ing the public, we’re all in big trouble.
Dave Saldana is an attorney and jour
nalist in Washington, D.C., where he
serves as communications director fo r
Free Press, a media advocacy group.
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